1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to the field of safety equipment. Military, Police, Firefighters, Emergency Medical Service, use protective hoods combined with facemasks that protect the head and facilitate breathing in a contaminated environment. The present invention relates to the packing of the hood on the facemask when the protective head gear is not in use.
2. Brief Description of Related Art
To protect the head and neck and facilitate breathing emergency workers, police and military personnel sometimes wear and integrated facemask hood. The hood is mechanically attached to the facemask prior to donning the facemask. Attaching the hood to the facemask prior to donning ensures the interface between the hood and facemask is complete and this configuration also increases the speed at which this safety equipment can be donned. The facemask can be part of a self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) which supplies breathing air from a storage container, or the facemask can include a respirator which filters out harmful particulates from the environment to provide safe breathing air. When the integrated facemask and hood are not in use, the hood hangs from the facemask.
This arrangement has a very significant disadvantage. The nature of emergency work most times requires personnel to maneuver into position prior to using the integrated facemask hood. This maneuvering can including crawling through confined spaces, climbing fences, ect. The hood hanging from the facemask causes a snag hazard. The hood can be ripped, disconnected from the facemask, entangled in rescue equipment the worker may be utilizing, easily contaminated and be generally “in the way”, thus impeding the progress of the emergency worker and preventing one from successfully completing the objective. Accordingly, a need exists for an integrated facemask hood to be packed in such a way as to reduce the possibility of the hood getting snagged.